Tag Archives: cheddar cheese

Hello again, dear Food Blog. It’s been so long. And how I’ve missed you. I sure haven’t stopped cooking. Life and all of its details can often come between me and my posting.

But enough about that, I made Breakfast Burritos! And not just 2 or 3. Nope. I made 15 and only stopped then because I ran out of tortillas. I could have made 3 more if I hadn’t run out!

Why would a person make 15/18 burritos at a time you ask? Here’s the long answer: Erik and I are both up and working pretty early every morning. I start around 6:30 and he starts at 7. Usually he comes downstairs by 8:00 and asks the kids and I what we feel like having for breakfast (I can hear my mom groaning now – neither she nor my grandma would have offered the choices, but we’re in the habit of doing so), then he makes breakfast for everyone. We’re all big on having protein first thing in the morning and frankly, we’re pretty sick of eggs being either scrambled or over medium. So to break it up a little, and also to give my breakfast-making husband a break, I took an hour on a Saturday morning and made fifteen-but-could-have-been-eighteen breakfast burritos.

Heat the butter and oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the potatoes, season with salt and pepper to taste. Partially cover the potatoes with a lid – this helps them cook through a little faster before they start to brown. You can remove the lid about halfway through cooking to allow browning and crisping to happen. We want that to happen. Add the sausage to another large skillet and start to brown over medium high heat. After you have it crumbled up and it starts to brown (about 5 minutes), add the onion, green pepper and garlic. Give it a stir every so often. Continue to cook potatoes, stirring often enough to keep potatoes from sticking to the bottom of the pan but not so often that you don’t give them a chance to brown – it took about 12 to 15 minutes for my potatoes to get as crisp as we like them.

If you have a spare minute while the sausage mixture and potatoes are cooking, you can grate your cheese. You can also start cracking all 20 of those eggs into a medium bowl. Add the milk or cream to the eggs along with salt and pepper to taste, then whisk well.

Once the sausage mixture is brown and the veggies are tender, use a slotted spoon to scoop all of it into a very large bowl. When the potatoes are cooked through and as crisp as you’d like, spoon them into the large bowl with the sausage mixture.

Add some butter to one of the now-empty large skillets, then pour your whisked eggs in and cook over medium heat, stirring them often to scramble them. Once they are scrambled, add the eggs to the potatoes and sausage in the large bowl. Stir everything together to combine.

Grab your tortillas and layer them in damp paper towels. I heated half of them at a time, layering a damp paper towel between every 3 or 4 tortillas. It took about 2 minutes on high to get them as soft and pliable as I liked. You want them soft to keep them from tearing while you roll.

Time to roll the burritos! I searched for a decent tutorial on burrito rolling and this is the best one I could find. Watch it if you need to, if not – start rolling your burritos by taking a tortilla and laying it flat, spoon 1 to 1 1/2 cups of the filling in the center, sprinkle desired amount of cheese on top, then roll. Make them as fat or skinny as you’d like – whatever amount you use will obviously affect the amount of burritos you end up with. Just make ’em how you like them!

Wrap each burrito in a square of foil, then place burritos in gallon ziplocs and freeze. When you’re ready for breakfast, heat a burrito in the microwave for 2 to 3 minutes, add your favorite salsa, guacamole, sour cream, cilantro…and enjoy!
ETA: This recipe is inspired and adapted from a recipe found at the Ninth & Bird site.

I was never a fan of macaroni and cheese as a kid. Maybe because the only time we ever had it was with liver and cooked beets (sorry, Mom – I still just don’t get that meal). ??? The cooked beets would always run into the mac and cheese on my plate and well, ewww. And I won’t even start on the liver.

For most of my time as a mom, however, I have been in search of a good macaroni and cheese recipe. I’ve tried them all: stove top recipes, super fancy recipes, recipes with cheeses I didn’t know existed, recipes with Velveeta…yeah, I’ve been around the mac n’ cheese block, still not finding the right consistency or flavor, etc.

I’m here to tell you that I may have found it this time. Maybe it’s the chicken broth? Or maybe it’s the smooth, not-too-runny, not-too-dry consistency. Either way, this mac and cheese was a huge hit with the fam. It has the perfect combo of cheesy-ness without being overly rich. Enjoy!

Put water on to boil macaroni. Once boiling, salt the water and add macaroni. Cook for 5 minutes, drain and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Add the butter to large pan and heat on medium heat until melted. Add the garlic, mustard, and cayenne; cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the flour and cook, stirring constantly, until golden, about 1 minute. Slowly whisk in the chicken broth and milk; bring to a simmer and cook, whisking often, until large bubbles form on the surface and the mixture is slightly thickened, 5 to 8 minutes. Off the heat, whisk in the cheeses gradually until completely melted. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Add the drained pasta to the cheese sauce and stir, breaking up any clumps, until well combined. Pour into a 9 x 13″ baking dish and sprinkle with desired amount of bread crumbs. Spread little cubes of butter over bread crumbs. (It will seem like it has far too much of the cheesy sauce, but don’t worry the macaroni soaks it up and it ends up “just right!”) Bake until golden brown and bubbling around the edges, approximately 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Here it is! The first casserole of the “season.” I don’t know about you, but I rarely “think casserole” during the summer. Now that Fall is here in full force, I’ve got a few casseroles on my mind.

This recipe is another family favorite. I originally got it from Beth Moore; this dish happens to be a specialty her husband likes to make for their family. I’ve changed it an eensy weensy bit but didn’t want to stray too far from the original. Why change a really good thing?

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large skillet, saute onion and pepper in butter until soft – about 5 or 6 minutes. Add soups, Ro-Tel, chicken and salsa, stirring until well blended. Cook over medium high heat for 5 minutes. In a 13X9X2 baking dish (or even a little deeper dish if you have it), alternate layers of tortillas, soup mixture and cheese, ending with cheese on top. Bake 30 minutes until hot and bubbling. Let stand 5 minutes before serving. Garnish with cilantro or even sour cream if so desired! Serve with a green salad!